Last Updated on December 30, 2019, 8:35 AM AST by Anthony Morris
Prime Minister Gaston Browne declares his administration has extended “The investigative expertise of law enforcement” to investigate if there could be any proof to verify a claim by a Guyanese-born mother that her twin daughters were allegedly kidnapped from her 15 years ago at a now-defunct hospital here.
The Prime Minister, in an announcement on the weekend, said that a declaration made by Keoma Hamer is “deflated by the evidence given so far”.
The Brooklyn, New York-based Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID) had called on the Government of Prime Minister Browne to carry out a “reliable investigation” into the alleged abduction of the doubles from Hamer.
CGID told the media that it was “profoundly concerned that Antigua and Barbuda Government officials have not settled allegations that twin toddlers were stolen from Hamer – a Guyanese national, moments after they were born at a hospital in Antigua on September 7, 2004, while she was in transit there.”
“Data insinuates that those 14-year-old twins are alive,” said CGID’s Guyanese-born president Rickford Burke, a global law consultant.
“One purportedly lives in Antigua and the other in the US. It is incomprehensible that the matter mentioned above remains unsolved.”
Consequently, Burke said CGID has entreated the US State Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to examine this accusation,” as it conceivably develops abduction and human trafficking”.
But according to the prime minister, “a female unfamiliar to virtually everyone in Antigua and Barbuda claimed that 15 years ago while transiting Antigua, she was moved to the now-defunct Holberton Hospital, where she gave birth to twins.
“She has claimed that a nurse notified her that the infants died in labour,” Browne said. “Grasping that harrowing experience, she progressed to another Caribbean country and has stayed to live there for the one and one half-decade up until today.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
